Many software environments provide help systems for enabling users to obtain help information on programs or software products running in the software environments. If users encounter a problem or forget a command while running the programs, users can invoke the help system by pressing a designated help key or entering a help command. For example, the help key is the function key labeled F1 in Windows®. Once the help system is invoked, users can choose the appropriate topic for the problem that the users are currently encountering. The help system then displays a help screen that contains the desired documentation. Some help systems are more sophisticated, displaying different help messages depending on where the users are in the program. Such systems are said to be context sensitive.
Conventional help systems, including context sensitive help systems, use static help documents the content of which does not vary after installation. Since the content of the static help documents does not vary, the conventional help systems provide separate help documents for different content. It is not an efficient method to provide separate static help documents for help messages that are closely related.